man portrait Print

After studying art in Berlin at the University of the Arts, I painted and experimented with different materials until 2003. My paintings, sculptures and installations have been shown in several exhibitions. In 2006 I moved to Koroni, a small fishing village in Greece. After a long break from artistic creation, which lasted almost 20 years, I started painting again in Koroni during the pandemic. First, I felt my motifs in the truest sense of the word, I held them in my hands and painted them. Lemon, banana, a withered peel that reveals a row of pea-sized, orange-colored fruits inside, like an open mouth. Since my life was very different and very reduced during this time, the focus of my perception was primarily on my daily counterpart, my life partner. Everyday life with him, his gestures, his look, how he eats, how he stands there and looks, how exhausted he comes home from work in the winter... I watched him and found that in one person again and again changing motif for my pictures. Then came landscapes, plants, houses, long walks, rocks, beaches. The cactus in front of my house in a tiny sculpted swan shell that leaves little room for it to grow and yet never dies, with the neighboring house in the background. Discovering an ensemble of cactus walking through the narrow streets of Koroni; then an inconspicuous old house to which a wide cement path leads, the bursting cracks of which form loopholes for rampant grasses. It's about giving things a new attention and meaning through painting. So I found the place in myself that I missed after a long creative break. Getting involved with the motif, observing, creating an image, the process is never the same. I often use photographs that inspire me to paint a picture or I see something that I first photograph in order to then create a new picture from it.